Sentencing and sanctions in Finland

Abstract

Scandinavia is a group of five countries, each of which has a system of its own. These systems differ, but when it comes to basic principles in the administration of criminal justice, they come very close to each other. This is as much a result of common history and traditions, and a common model of society (the Nordic Welfare State), as it is of co-operation for over 50 years on legal issues.Finland, however, forms a “special case” in the Nordic family. Severe crises and wars diverted Finland from the common Nordic path in terms of socio-economic and political development during the first decades of the 20th century. But a rapid recovery returned Finland back to the “Nordic Community” as a member of the Nordic Welfare Family from the 1970s onwards. These changes are all reflected in Finnish criminal policy: first in the form of radically increasing incarceration rates, and thereafter in the form of a determined, long-term and consistent reform policy that brought the Finnish criminal justice and penal policy in line with the developing Nordic Welfare State. This policy was based on the belief that imprisonment was overused and trusted too much as a criminal policy measure, and that more durable and constructive results can be achieved by criminologically informed evidence-based crime prevention techniques, and by developing alternative community sanctions to be used instead of incarceration.These efforts were successful. The most visible indicator of this success was the spectacular decrease of the Finnish prisoner rates from the highest western European level in the early 1970s to the lowest in the 1990s. This result was also achieved without any notable effects on the Finnish crime rates, when compared to the situation in the other Nordic countries. Finnish experiences are exceptional during a time when most countries have experienced increasing penal control and higher incarceration rates. However, these experiences also demonstrate that change is possible, once there is the political will to do so.